We have had several attempts at introducing 21st Century Learning Skills to the staff in our district. Our Tech Integrator, Ben Higgins, has been offering on-line classes for blogs, wiki, and tech integration for the past couple of years. As we have been rolling out new programs and providing training we have been distributing the upated ISTE Tech Standards and student profiles, basically giving a general overview of what is new and how we might be able to integrate. We have begun a grant program where teachers are able to submit a project proposal for digital document cameras, projectors, interactive whiteboards and for additional equipment. The first round of winners have just had their quipment delivered and intstalled and are have received an initial round of training. It is our intention to put out a second round of tech grantsbefore the end of the school year.
Our first group project, a book study, didn't get off the ground too quickly. We gave a copy of Will's book to each of the members and set up discussion threads in our groups section of Ning with an activity to complete and comment on for each chapter.
Our second project has gotten rave reviews from staff members!! We created a half-day staff development session that was "performed live" via our distant learning room to staff members who were "viewing" from high school classrooms.
We created the presentation on our district website entitled Let's Talk Tech. We had an elmo, smart board, presentation device and laptop set up in each of the 4 rooms. Ben and I presented live from the distance learning room over the television and had teachers follow along - or watch- when their computers were locked as we gave an overview of our district website and technologies available in our district. We then had teacher move from a paper pencil activity to repsonding via a blog so that the could see other response in real time. We continuted to introduce web 2.0 tools using videos from Common Craft's Plain English site followed by some time to explore a specific list of sites. We looked at blogging, wikis and social networking. All the time we had skype set up in each room so that we would be able to "look in" on the classrooms as well as being able to provide a means of Q & A. We reduced the filtering for the day so that student would have the capabilities to view myspace, facebook, youtube and more. It was interesting to see what teachers could find about students and their out of school activities.
We finished the day with an overview of the some of the projects that have been done during this school year and are posted on our district website. It was a great experience and all involved really had FUN with the presentation. The reviews from the sessions were a fresh breath of air.....you can check out our presentation at http://www.springvillegi.org/webpages/ttalk/index.cfm
Springville Team Project - Let's Talk Tech
We have had several attempts at introducing 21st Century Learning Skills to the staff in our district. Our Tech Integrator, Ben Higgins, has been offering on-line classes for blogs, wiki, and tech integration for the past couple of years. As we have been rolling out new programs and providing training we have been distributing the upated ISTE Tech Standards and student profiles, basically giving a general overview of what is new and how we might be able to integrate. We have begun a grant program where teachers are able to submit a project proposal for digital document cameras, projectors, interactive whiteboards and for additional equipment. The first round of winners have just had their quipment delivered and intstalled and are have received an initial round of training. It is our intention to put out a second round of tech grantsbefore the end of the school year.
Our first group project, a book study, didn't get off the ground too quickly. We gave a copy of Will's book to each of the members and set up discussion threads in our groups section of Ning with an activity to complete and comment on for each chapter.
Our second project has gotten rave reviews from staff members!! We created a half-day staff development session that was "performed live" via our distant learning room to staff members who were "viewing" from high school classrooms.
We created the presentation on our district website entitled Let's Talk Tech. We had an elmo, smart board, presentation device and laptop set up in each of the 4 rooms. Ben and I presented live from the distance learning room over the television and had teachers follow along - or watch- when their computers were locked as we gave an overview of our district website and technologies available in our district. We then had teacher move from a paper pencil activity to repsonding via a blog so that the could see other response in real time. We continuted to introduce web 2.0 tools using videos from Common Craft's Plain English site followed by some time to explore a specific list of sites. We looked at blogging, wikis and social networking. All the time we had skype set up in each room so that we would be able to "look in" on the classrooms as well as being able to provide a means of Q & A. We reduced the filtering for the day so that student would have the capabilities to view myspace, facebook, youtube and more. It was interesting to see what teachers could find about students and their out of school activities.
We finished the day with an overview of the some of the projects that have been done during this school year and are posted on our district website. It was a great experience and all involved really had FUN with the presentation. The reviews from the sessions were a fresh breath of air.....you can check out our presentation at http://www.springvillegi.org/webpages/ttalk/index.cfm